Saturday, March 26, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Video Reenactment
Sunday, March 20, 2011
3 Videos
Gary Hill discusses his use of video.
Reflex chamber, the idea of a séance, trying to find something about an image, experimenting with images and strobe lights. He believed images have a viscosity, a substance that can create a perception of levitation. Attempting with rhythm, brightness o light, sound to achieve a neuron firing like texture, a new kind of experience. Wall piece, when it was shot, uses a single bright strobe light, pulsed at a wall. With each word he threw himself at the wall and pulsed the light, the finished piece word/images were edited together into a semi seamless video. ‘To be transfixed is no longer an option.’ For crossbow he inserted himself into a semi interactive circuit of closed circuit cameras aimed at the back of his hands and head. ‘The process itself changes your behavior.’ He wanted to reflect on the “two-ness’ of the body, and how there is a conflict, a tension between the left and right. One side inevitably becomes ‘the other.’ CRUX. What if I attach cameras on my body and instead of using my eyes, I experience having 50 pounds of cameras strapped to my body and the difficulties of moving around. Because of the nature of the way the cameras are attached, the limbs are static except for their interaction with the space. Has a connection to the crucifixion and Davinci’s man. The subject is merged with the object. There is no disconnection of the eye and body. Suspension of disbelief - Images only last between 1-2 frames. The movement of these frames across a sequence of monitors is kind of tracing or allowing a body to be seen across as a sort of panorama of the body. Performing Images are always moving. When an image is still its support structure says this is an image. There is a locking on between us and the image. Image and sound are such vast areas. I work with how they collide and interact and come together. Most of my work has to do with not only image and sound but also speech. Remarks on Color. A young girl (his daughter?) reading from a book on color. With a child there is never a question of understand or I don’t understand, no one understands something perfectly. Comprehension is a process. I instructed her to try to negotiate every word even if she didn’t understand it or how to pronounce it. So there was a transformation of words. Reflections on phonetic spellings with her as a teenager. Surfing in California. It’s good for me it gets me out of focused obsession and narrow thinking and its good to get out of that. Extreme close-up of a book. Dealing strongly with the physicality of text, interwoven with images of surfing water and added sounds. Nonsense and nudity. Come on Petunia, Once upon a time.- About constantly being on edge. What people are saying is nonsense, and it is reversed to make sense; A going against time. I believe in an image in light of the other – Mediations is derived from an earlier work, the first television commission I received from channel 13, they of course never showed it, complaining about the production value. But it took a loud speaker and played on the wordplay of a speaker, bare, sand, buried, underground.
Tongues Untied
Brother to brother – increasing number of people speaking, stopping, restarting. Images of mostly African American men interacting, playing sports. Commentary on the lack of communication about racism and the hurt, and the meaningless exclamations about the anger and speaking about work or a party rather than the anger felt because of racism because he is a black male, and the perception that all black men are thieves. Striving to appear strong and silent but at the cost of joy, what remains is wrath. Black Gay Activist searching for same. SNAP. Bus Bitch story. Clubbing, snap diva and the many snaps. Precision Poise Placement, for a grand snap statement. He knew he was gay by age 6; Practicing Kissing age 11. He was shy, confused, afraid, and alone; Cornered by identities he never wanted to claim. He ran, fast, hard, deep, inside himself where it was still silent safe, deception. Mugging; Left in a bloody pool to wait for the police and ambulance, or Jesus. A white boy came to his rescue, he called him friend, He fell in love and he left his imprint. He tried to ignore his preference for whites, and his familiarity with racist imagery as the norm, perception of himself as less. He dreams of a prince charming, as a transvestite hooker. Where do allegiances lie first, black or gay? Which eye is more you? There is no place for perversion in Gods church. Silence is his cloak; silence is his sword that cuts both ways. Their jokes and laughter form a chorus of contempt. Predominate strong black men mocks homosexual black men; each joke levels them a little lower. Silence is suicide. He cannot go home as who he is. He avoids similar men in order to not see collective anger and sadness. Anger unvented becomes pain unspoken becomes rage released becomes violence. Listen – self acceptance, truth, camaraderie. He speaks to Mothers: ‘you did not fail, I chose this life, I chose this tribe.’ Reflection on the dancing ‘negro boy’ earning acceptance from whites, the same dance is now his key to assimilation into the black gay community. Recitation of poetry about love, lust, and tenderness is followed by poetry about thinking, regression, fear – this might kill us; AIDS. “Whatever awaits me, this much I know, I was blind to my brother’s beauty and now I see my own. Deaf to the voice that believed we were worth wanting, loving each other, now I hear. I was mute, tongue tied, burdened by shadows and silence. Now I speak, and my burden is lightened, lifted, free. Black men loving black men, is the revolutionary act. SNAP.”
Shirin Neshat: The Woman Moves
Nashat is commening on the view of Muslim women in their society. She deals with gender differences in music, cinema, and photography through immigration, location and identity. Neshat believes that there is a difference between film and cinema; and that cinema is passive and therefore boring. she attempts to engage the audience by forcing them into the movie, which was about the isolation of a Muslim woman juxtaposed in the cities and environment of America. In another work, she gives photographs power and a voice by writing on them. Neshat's work also heavily criticizes the misogynistic society Muslim women, particularly Iranian, have to live in. She mocks Iranian men formally dressed, parading as if they are very busy, but actually there to do useless tasks. She follows this with hundreds of Iranian women trying to escape, in traditional garb covering their entire bodies, by pushing boats out to sea. Though she satirizes Iranian society, she views herself as an outsider helping the cause.
I found Gary Hills works dry, meaningless… he is simply exploring the visual and auditory possibilities of the medium, even when he himself attempts to explain his pieces he has difficulty with anything besides the obvious. He touches somewhat on symbolism, but it is other people’s symbols and meaning. I was disappointed that the work was more experiment than personal revelation. Tongues Unties was everything I believe it is an Image was not, personal, introspective, and not at all about the video technique. It was meant as an insight into a very narrow world perspective a black gay man, discriminated from other men by color, and from his own culture, by his sexual orientation. The woman moves was similar to Tongues Untied in power and meaning. Nashat is attempting to show her audience what it is like to be a Muslim woman, isolated from everything. The combination of imagery and spoken word in both was powerful, humorous AND tragic, and extremely memorable.
Reflex chamber, the idea of a séance, trying to find something about an image, experimenting with images and strobe lights. He believed images have a viscosity, a substance that can create a perception of levitation. Attempting with rhythm, brightness o light, sound to achieve a neuron firing like texture, a new kind of experience. Wall piece, when it was shot, uses a single bright strobe light, pulsed at a wall. With each word he threw himself at the wall and pulsed the light, the finished piece word/images were edited together into a semi seamless video. ‘To be transfixed is no longer an option.’ For crossbow he inserted himself into a semi interactive circuit of closed circuit cameras aimed at the back of his hands and head. ‘The process itself changes your behavior.’ He wanted to reflect on the “two-ness’ of the body, and how there is a conflict, a tension between the left and right. One side inevitably becomes ‘the other.’ CRUX. What if I attach cameras on my body and instead of using my eyes, I experience having 50 pounds of cameras strapped to my body and the difficulties of moving around. Because of the nature of the way the cameras are attached, the limbs are static except for their interaction with the space. Has a connection to the crucifixion and Davinci’s man. The subject is merged with the object. There is no disconnection of the eye and body. Suspension of disbelief - Images only last between 1-2 frames. The movement of these frames across a sequence of monitors is kind of tracing or allowing a body to be seen across as a sort of panorama of the body. Performing Images are always moving. When an image is still its support structure says this is an image. There is a locking on between us and the image. Image and sound are such vast areas. I work with how they collide and interact and come together. Most of my work has to do with not only image and sound but also speech. Remarks on Color. A young girl (his daughter?) reading from a book on color. With a child there is never a question of understand or I don’t understand, no one understands something perfectly. Comprehension is a process. I instructed her to try to negotiate every word even if she didn’t understand it or how to pronounce it. So there was a transformation of words. Reflections on phonetic spellings with her as a teenager. Surfing in California. It’s good for me it gets me out of focused obsession and narrow thinking and its good to get out of that. Extreme close-up of a book. Dealing strongly with the physicality of text, interwoven with images of surfing water and added sounds. Nonsense and nudity. Come on Petunia, Once upon a time.- About constantly being on edge. What people are saying is nonsense, and it is reversed to make sense; A going against time. I believe in an image in light of the other – Mediations is derived from an earlier work, the first television commission I received from channel 13, they of course never showed it, complaining about the production value. But it took a loud speaker and played on the wordplay of a speaker, bare, sand, buried, underground.
Tongues Untied
Brother to brother – increasing number of people speaking, stopping, restarting. Images of mostly African American men interacting, playing sports. Commentary on the lack of communication about racism and the hurt, and the meaningless exclamations about the anger and speaking about work or a party rather than the anger felt because of racism because he is a black male, and the perception that all black men are thieves. Striving to appear strong and silent but at the cost of joy, what remains is wrath. Black Gay Activist searching for same. SNAP. Bus Bitch story. Clubbing, snap diva and the many snaps. Precision Poise Placement, for a grand snap statement. He knew he was gay by age 6; Practicing Kissing age 11. He was shy, confused, afraid, and alone; Cornered by identities he never wanted to claim. He ran, fast, hard, deep, inside himself where it was still silent safe, deception. Mugging; Left in a bloody pool to wait for the police and ambulance, or Jesus. A white boy came to his rescue, he called him friend, He fell in love and he left his imprint. He tried to ignore his preference for whites, and his familiarity with racist imagery as the norm, perception of himself as less. He dreams of a prince charming, as a transvestite hooker. Where do allegiances lie first, black or gay? Which eye is more you? There is no place for perversion in Gods church. Silence is his cloak; silence is his sword that cuts both ways. Their jokes and laughter form a chorus of contempt. Predominate strong black men mocks homosexual black men; each joke levels them a little lower. Silence is suicide. He cannot go home as who he is. He avoids similar men in order to not see collective anger and sadness. Anger unvented becomes pain unspoken becomes rage released becomes violence. Listen – self acceptance, truth, camaraderie. He speaks to Mothers: ‘you did not fail, I chose this life, I chose this tribe.’ Reflection on the dancing ‘negro boy’ earning acceptance from whites, the same dance is now his key to assimilation into the black gay community. Recitation of poetry about love, lust, and tenderness is followed by poetry about thinking, regression, fear – this might kill us; AIDS. “Whatever awaits me, this much I know, I was blind to my brother’s beauty and now I see my own. Deaf to the voice that believed we were worth wanting, loving each other, now I hear. I was mute, tongue tied, burdened by shadows and silence. Now I speak, and my burden is lightened, lifted, free. Black men loving black men, is the revolutionary act. SNAP.”
Shirin Neshat: The Woman Moves
Nashat is commening on the view of Muslim women in their society. She deals with gender differences in music, cinema, and photography through immigration, location and identity. Neshat believes that there is a difference between film and cinema; and that cinema is passive and therefore boring. she attempts to engage the audience by forcing them into the movie, which was about the isolation of a Muslim woman juxtaposed in the cities and environment of America. In another work, she gives photographs power and a voice by writing on them. Neshat's work also heavily criticizes the misogynistic society Muslim women, particularly Iranian, have to live in. She mocks Iranian men formally dressed, parading as if they are very busy, but actually there to do useless tasks. She follows this with hundreds of Iranian women trying to escape, in traditional garb covering their entire bodies, by pushing boats out to sea. Though she satirizes Iranian society, she views herself as an outsider helping the cause.
I found Gary Hills works dry, meaningless… he is simply exploring the visual and auditory possibilities of the medium, even when he himself attempts to explain his pieces he has difficulty with anything besides the obvious. He touches somewhat on symbolism, but it is other people’s symbols and meaning. I was disappointed that the work was more experiment than personal revelation. Tongues Unties was everything I believe it is an Image was not, personal, introspective, and not at all about the video technique. It was meant as an insight into a very narrow world perspective a black gay man, discriminated from other men by color, and from his own culture, by his sexual orientation. The woman moves was similar to Tongues Untied in power and meaning. Nashat is attempting to show her audience what it is like to be a Muslim woman, isolated from everything. The combination of imagery and spoken word in both was powerful, humorous AND tragic, and extremely memorable.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Questions for Discussion: Chapter 4
In the past major technological differences separated video artwork from film; connections were dwaeb between film and abstract formal art; and video and modern art. Modern Art is considered a dead or dying branch of art... given the changes in technology do you think that video has merged with film, died out, or evolved into something new?
Do you think the video art created with modern conveniences like inexpensive, compact high quality video recorders and professional quality home video editing software is more or less effective or genuine than the video art created before such conveniences existed and the portapak was the height of technology?
Today there is more equality between men and women artists, in the past many resorted to explicit content to make a point, how do you think that has affected our perception of feminine art? Do you think it affects the purpose and need for feminist art created t
oday?
Reflect on the validity of this statement:
Guy de Bord... "saw that a distracted public relying on television as a source of news, information, and cultural products could become unaware of its political and commercial manipulation of the mind transmitted directly to their living rooms while feeling they were in control through their remote control options.
Do you think the video art created with modern conveniences like inexpensive, compact high quality video recorders and professional quality home video editing software is more or less effective or genuine than the video art created before such conveniences existed and the portapak was the height of technology?
Today there is more equality between men and women artists, in the past many resorted to explicit content to make a point, how do you think that has affected our perception of feminine art? Do you think it affects the purpose and need for feminist art created t
oday?
Reflect on the validity of this statement:
Guy de Bord... "saw that a distracted public relying on television as a source of news, information, and cultural products could become unaware of its political and commercial manipulation of the mind transmitted directly to their living rooms while feeling they were in control through their remote control options.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Website Repurposing - Interventionist Design
I'm a very faithful person but I deplore organized religion and the horrific hypocracies they spout. Kill Infidels. Love thy neighbor. Homosexuals are abominations. Women don't have the right to enable themselves to be on an equal footing with men. 72 Virgins. Only 144,000 saved. All of it is utterly rediculous. God is the clockhmaker, leave him out of this mess. Reason, logic, and compassion should be our dogma not biased rhetoric based on pure science fiction.
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